1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to materials and methods for containing, maintaining and transporting fluids. In particular, the invention is directed to materials that can be adapted to a body and distribute weight of a fluid material for personal transportation and storage.
2. Description of the Background
In spite of many technological developments in transportation, people around the world are still reduced to carrying materials manually or by hand. This is especially true in third world countries, in areas where other mechanical devices are unavailable and in areas that have been hit by natural or man-made disasters. In such areas, a person will carry the maximum weight that his or her muscles will allow. The typically maximum carrying capacity of a person ranges from about 20 to about 50 pounds, somewhat more for the very strong and somewhat less for children and small individuals.
The ability to manually carry a heavy load is commonplace in many parts of the developing world and often a daily routine. When the weight is too great for the hands or arms, people have learned to carry excessively large weights on their heads, backs or shoulders. Although crude, shifting the weight from the muscles of the arms to the muscles of the entire body allows an individual to transport more weight and over longer distances. Shifting a heavy object to the head especially allows for greater weight carrying capacity. For example, in India, people transport baskets of bricks to works on construction sites by balancing the bricks on their backs. In East Africa, people transport loads of up to 70% of their own body weight balanced on top of their heads. Such loads are often simply water or firewood. With practice, individuals can balance such loads with no other means of securing the material to the body. However, people of the Kikuyu tribe often incorporate a leather strap wrapped around their forehead to maintain the load on a person's head. Aside from the obvious headaches, the strap often creates a permanent groove in the forehead.
Interestingly, 20% or more of the person's body weight can be carried on the head with little extra exertion of energy. This energy savings can be critical in areas of the world that have limited resources, including disaster areas.
In many underdeveloped areas of the world, affluent residents employ young people and even children, as head porters to transport water. After the tsunami in Achi, Indonesia, movement of water from supply points to families was severely limited and often done by carrying quantities of small (one liter) bottles or by balancing large open buckets on the head. In the Philippine Islands, after Typhoon Haiyan, rebuilding was hampered due to limited ability to transport water to outlying areas.
The “last mile” problem of water distribution in quantities beyond individual use (more then what a single person can use in a practical period of time), but short of wholesale volumes (quantities beyond what an individual can transport easily) presents a significant challenge in a variety of circumstances, including response to large scale disasters. While there is frequently potable water available in a situation of this nature (disaster relief water purification plants, or tanks of fresh water being provided in bulk quantities, such as in large storage bladders or by tanker truck), transport of this water to the point of use (e.g., a home, kitchen, shelter) in volumes beyond what a single individual would use is extremely difficult. Transportation was limited to foot transport as roads were impassable.
Current tools and methods are simply inefficient and waste immense amounts of materials and resources. Presently there is an urgent need for the inexpensive yet efficient transport of materials by a single individual across a distance.